Nancy Mace tries to cement her hold on her US House seat in South Carolina
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace is trying to cement her hold on her seat in a state that doesn’t mind sending people back to Congress for decades.
There have been questions over whether Mace’s attention-seeking personality and brashness and willingness to buck her party’s establishment could be a liability. But so far she has been embraced by her coastal 1st District.
Mace flipped the seat back to Republicans in 2020 after a stunning upset of incumbent Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham. She fought off a GOP challenger endorsed by former President Donald Trump in 2022 and breezed to a surprisingly easy win — this time with Trump’s backing — in the 2024 Republican primary without a runoff.
Her fellow Republicans in the South Carolina General Assembly also did her a favor by redrawing the district and sending traditional Democratic precincts in and around downtown Charleston to the state’s only majority-minority district. Under the old map in 2020, Mace won less than 51% of the vote. With the new maps in 2022 she received more than 56%.